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The New York Times has an article on a first for pro gamers: network television coverage of a match. Sunday at noon EDT CBS Sports will be airing coverage of the World Series of Videogames. Events will include Guitar Hero II, Fight Night and World of Warcraft 3v3 Arena combat. The article explores some of the challenges of making gaming understandable on television: "The dollars are already quite mainstream. Americans bought about $13 billion worth of video game systems and software last year, more than they spent at the film box office (around $10 billion). Advertisers for Sunday's broadcast include KFC, Intel and the Marines. But for gaming to make it as a major-network TV sport, the big hurdle will be translating a medium that is by its nature meant to be experienced firsthand into a compelling hands-off spectator experience. It is a task that in some ways is no less daunting than that of the early baseball television producers who eventually realized that a camera way out in center field would provide the best view of pitches."Update: 07/28 23:19 GMT by Z: Fixed day of the weekend the show is on.

It is high time that the geekier sports such as video gaming be given a chance on network television.

Anyone in the UK from their mid-teens onwards will likely remember GamesMaster [wikipedia.org], a show on Channel 4 [wikipedia.org] that primarily focused on people playing computer games in just that manner. And this was over 15 years ago... okay, to be fair, it's not been on TV since 1998- but my point is that showing gaming on TV is nothing new.

Personally, I'd rather have seen less people playing games and more reviews and stuff. (But apparently- according to the article- GamesMaster was under the jurisdiction of Channel 4's sports department.) Watching people play computer games just wasn't that exciting to me.